GURU NANAK AND GURU GOBIND SINGH
It is little wonder that Nanak came to be revered as the king or shah of the holy men – the guru of the Hindus and the peer of the Mussalmans …. Guru Gobind Singh was … a rare combination of many qualities … who dedicated his life to fighting tyranny; a leader who looked upon his followers as comrades and equals …
Guru Nanak
On the night of the full moon in the month of Vaisakh in the Samvat (one of the Hindu calendars) version – according to Mehervan’s Janamsakhis (birth stories) of Guru Nanak – Tripta, the wife of Mehta Kalian Das Bedi of Talwandi Rae Bhoe, was in labour. Three-quarters of the night had passed. The morning star shone bright in the eastern sky; it was the hour of early dawn when she was delivered of her second child, a son.
Nanak’s birth was thus on 15 April 1469. However, in order to continue an old tradition, the event is celebrated on the full moon night in the month of November. As to the place of his birth, it is thought that the name Nanak was given to the child because he was born in the house of his maternal grandparents or nankey, which was either in Kalma Kacha or Chalewal, two villages in the district of Lahore (now in Pakistan).
Nanak was a precocious child, smiling and sitting up in early infancy. When he was only five years old, people noticed that he did not play with other boys but spoke words of wisdom well beyond his years. The people’s reactions were interesting. Whosoever heard him, Hindu or Muslim, was certain that God spoke through the little boy. This belief grew stronger as Nanak grew older.
At the age of seven, Nanak was taken to a pandit to be taught. Nanak apparently turned the tables on his teacher and his discourse with his teacher is the subject of a beautiful hymn in Sri Raga:
The only real learning is the worship of God; the rest is of no avail and wisdom devoid of the knowledge of the Creator is but the noose of ignorance about one’s neck. He that repeats the name of the Lord in this world will reap his reward in the world to come.
Do you know how and why men come into this world and why they depart? Why some become rich and others poor? Why some hold court while others go begging door to door, and even of the beggars why some receive alms while others do not? Take it from me, O pandit, that those who have enjoyed power and ease in this life and not given praise to the Lord will surely be punished; just as the dhobi (washerman) beats dirty clothes on slabs of stones, so will they be beaten; just as an oilman grinds oilseeds to extract oil will they be ground; just as the miller crushes grain between his millstones will they be crushed. On the other hand, those that are poor and those that have to beg for their living, who spend their lives in prayer, will receive their honour and reward in the divine court of justice.
He that has fear of God is free from all fears. But monarch or commoner, he that fears not God, will be reduced to dust and be reborn to suffer the pangs of hell. That which is gained by falsehood becomes unclean. The only truth is God. Our only love should be for God who is immortal; why love those that will perish – son, wife, power, wealth, youth – all are subject to decay and death.
(Mehervan’s Janamsakhi)
A year later, Nanak was sent to the village mosque to learn Arabic and other subjects. Here, too, Nanak astounded his teacher:
The mullah wrote down the Arabic alphabet from alif to yea. Nanak at once mastered the writing and the pronunciation of the letters and within a few days had learnt arithmetic, accounting and everything else the mullah could teach. The mullah marvelled: ‘Great God! Other children have been struggling for ten years and cannot tell one letter from another, and this child has by Thy grace learnt all within a matter of days.’
(Mehervan’s Janamsakhi)
Nanak was a moody child and often refused to speak to anyone for days on end. He wandered about the woods absorbed in observing the phenomena of nature: the advent of spring with its bees and butterflies; the searing heat of summer that burned up all vegetation followed by the monsoon, which miraculously restored life and turned the countryside green; and the ways of the birds and beasts of the jungle. All this mystery baffled young Nanak’s mind and he began to ponder over the character of the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer and to question the efficacy of rituals, both Hindu and Muslim.
When he was only nine, Nanak demanded of the Brahmin priest who had come to invest him with the sacred thread, the janeau: ‘Do the Brahmins and Kshatriyas lose their faith if they lose their sacred thread? Is their faith maintained by their thread or by their deeds?’
Soon, Nanak was the despair of his parents. He refused to do any kind of work. If he was sent to graze cattle, he let them stray into other people’s fields; if he was given money to do trade, he would give it away to the poor and the hungry. He would be saved from the wrath of his father by his mother and sister and by the village folk who bore witness to the many miracles they had seen emanate from Nanak.
At the age of sixteen Nanak was married to Sulakhni, daughter of Mul Chand Chona of Batala. They had two sons, Sri Chand and Lakhmi Das, and perhaps a daughter or daughters, who died in infancy. Family life did not divert Nanak’s attention for too long. His moods would suddenly descend upon him and he would remain silent for many days and then become argumentative on subjects such as God, man, death, rituals and moral values. And he remained as indifferent to making a living as he had been before he became a husband and a father.
One evening in July (says Mehervan’s Janamsakhi), the skies over Talwandi were darkened by black monsoon clouds and it began to pour. At night the sky was rent with flashes of lightning and there was a fearful crash of thunder. Nanak began to sing hymns in praise of the Lord. His mother came to him and said: ‘Son, it is time you had some sleep.’ Just then the cuckoo called ‘peeoh, peeoh’, and Nanak replied: ‘Mother, when my rival is awake, how can I sleep?’
It became evident to the people that it would not be long before Nanak took the hermit’s path in search of truth and, once, when a group of holy men happened to pass through Talwandi on their way to a pilgrimage, Nanak’s mother expressed her apprehensions: ‘I know that one of these days you too will be leaving me to go on a pilgrimage. I do not complain but would like to know what is gained by going to holy places?’
‘Nothing,’ replied Nanak categorically. ‘It is in our own body that we have to build our temples, free our minds from the snares of maya [illusion], renounce evil deeds and give praise to our Maker. This is as good as going to bathe in the sixty-eight holy places of pilgrimage.’
‘Then tell these holy men that they pursue the path of error,’ said Nanak’s mother. ‘Tell them that God can be found in their own houses.’
‘Let each one find his own path,’ replied Nanak. ‘Why should I worry my head about their methods?’
The beauty of the woodland in spring cast its usual spell. But, for Nanak, the beauty was now tinged with anguish for he needed to know the truth of the reality that did not change with the seasons. A beautiful hymn in Raga Basant sums up the feeling:
It was springtime. The trees were in new leaf; many wild shrubs were in flower. The woods around Talwandi were a beauteous sight. Young men of his village came to him and said: ‘Nanak, it is spring. Come with us and let us behold the wonders of nature.’
‘The month of Chaitra,’ said Nanak, ‘is the most beautiful of the twelve months of the year because all is green and every living thing seems to blossom into fullness. But my heart does not rejoice at the sight of the blossoming of nature until it is blessed with the name of the Lord. We must first subdue our ego, sing praises of the Lord and then our hearts too will be fragrant.’
‘We do not understand what you say,’ they protested: ‘We want to tell you that in the woods the trees are so green that we cannot find words to describe them; there are varieties of flowers whose beauty is beyond the speech of man; there are fruits whose lusciousness is beyond praise; and beneath them the shade is cool and fragrant. You should see these things with your own eyes.’
‘The Lord’s grace,’ said Nanak, ‘gave the trees their new foliage. His decrees covered them with blossoms of great beauty and filled their fruits with sweet nectarine. When they have their foliage the Lord makes their shade cool and fragrant. I have such foliage in my own heart with similar flowers, fruit and cool shade, and people seek shelter under it.
‘The great God has given us eyes to see, ears to hear and a mouth to speak and eat the corn that grows. Why has he given us these things?
‘He has given you eyes not merely to gape at the woods but to behold His creation and marvel at it; ears to hear godly counsel; the tongue to speak the truth. Thereafter, whatever you receive is your true wealth and sustenance.’
The young men did not understand all that Nanak said. They tried once more to persuade him to come out with them. ‘Spring comes but once a year and nature dons its garb of green but once. Then comes the fall. Trees lose their foliage and the woods are barren of beauty. If you want to see nature at its best, see it in the month of Chaitra.’
‘Months and seasons ever come and go and come again,’ replied Nanak. ‘Trees and bushes attain foliage at one season, lose it at another and once again become green when the season turns. The lesson for you is to see that those who do good acts reap the fruit of good action and those who do evil, wither and die; those who take the name of the Lord ever have spring in their hearts. The grape only receives its juice during the monsoon but the good man receives his reward at all times of the year and all times of the day and night. Human birth is the springtime of the cycle of birth, death and rebirth; it is the time for you to plant the seed of good action and reap its fruit in life thereafter; in this do not tarry.’
As Nanak grew even more detached from the ties of living, he took no notice of his wife or children, of his goods, or of the people around him. His life became one of prayer, alms giving, ablution and the seeking after knowledge: nam, dan, isnan and gyan. Lust, anger and pride fell away as Nanak’s heart was filled with truth and blessed contentment. Nanak lived in this state ‘like one drunk’ for some years till his sister, Nanaki, now married, took the situation in hand. She persuaded her husband, Jai Ram, to invite her brother over to Sultanpur (now in Pakistan), where they lived, and get him employment with his master, Nawab Daulat Khan Lodhi.
Nanak went to Sultanpur accompanied by a family servant, a Muslim named Mardana, who was to become his closest companion. Mardana, the Janamsakhi tells us, came from the brewer caste, and was a gifted musician. He played the rabab (a string instrument) and also sang hymns.
Nawab Daulat Khan Lodhi was impressed with the integrity of his new storekeeper and accountant. Nanak would not accept bribes from agents and refused to follow the corrupt practices of his predecessors. The people in Sultanpur could not stop praising Nanak.
In Sultanpur, Nanak organized his daily life in an ideal manner. Every evening he and Mardana would sing hymns before retiring to bed. Nanak would wake up while it was still dark, and, after a dip in the river close by, sing hymns with the coterie of his followers. After this, at the appointed hour, Nanak would go to the court of the nawab and apply himself to his work.
Though he won the approbation of his employer and those he dealt with, Nanak was unhappy.
‘This has been suddenly put around my neck like a noose,’ he said. He began to say to himself that if he had to serve anyone, wouldn’t it be wiser to serve his own Master who is within him instead of the person without? ‘It is all very well to seek knowledge and wisdom but one cannot escape the noose of maya without sowing seeds of good actions. One cannot earn wages without service and it is the love of the wage which stands in the way of renunciation. Why not then serve the great Master who is the Lord of all?’ Nanak postponed his decision with the thought: ‘I, Nanak, am no better than others; others are no worse than I; what the Lord wills, Nanak will honour and obey.’ (Mehervan’s Janamsakhi.)
It was, however, clear that the time of decision was at hand.
Nanak’s days were spent in noting down receipts and expenses. At the end of the day, he added up the totals to make sure they tallied with the accounts. He often had to work late into the night adding up his figures under the light of the lamp. One night he got angry with himself and threw away his pen and account books. He asked himself: ‘Why have I got involved in these affairs and forgotten my Maker? Am I destined to spend my days and nights writing accounts? It is a vast net in which I find myself caught; if I let the days go by, the noose will close tighter around me. If I have to burn the midnight oil, it should be for something worthwhile.’
Nanak pondered over these issues late into the night and, instead of returning home, went to the stream to bathe. He prayed: ‘Lord send me a guru, a guide who will show me the path that leads to Thy mansion.’
That very night God revealed Himself to Nanak. Nanak prayed fervently and begged the Lord to forgive him and remove him from the world that had so ensnared him. The Lord asked Nanak: ‘Why are you so agitated? You have done no wrong.’
‘I have let my mind turn from Thee,’ replied Nanak, ‘to the petty trifles of the world.’
‘Your errors have I forgiven. The maya that you complain of is also a part of Me. What you see is but its shadow.’
‘Lord destroy in me the longing for worldly gain.’
‘Nanak you shall no more crave for worldly gain. I am pleased with you. On you be My blessing.’ (Mehervan’s Janamsakhi.)
The mystic experience that finally made Nanak take up his mission is put at different times and is variously described. The incident took place in August 1507 on the third night before the full moon. According to the Janamsakhi: The moon had set, but it was dark and the stars still twinkled in the sky when Nanak, followed by his servant, went to the river Bein. Nanak took off his kurta and dhoti and stepped into the stream. He closed his nostrils and ducked into the water. He did not come up. The servant waited a while and then, panicking, ran up and down the river bank crying for Nanak. A strange voice rose from the waters saying: ‘Do not lose patience.’
Mardana, however, ran back to Sultanpur and sobbed out his story. A great commotion took place in the town because Nanak was loved by all – Hindus and Muslims, the rich and the poor. When Daulat Khan Lodhi heard of the mishap, he was most distressed. ‘Friends,’ he said, ‘Nanak was a man of God. Let us dredge the river and rescue [sic] his corpse.’
While the people of Sultanpur were dredging the river, Nanak was conducted into the presence of God. The Almighty gave him a bowl of milk. ‘Nanak, drink this bowl,’ He commanded. ‘It is not milk as it may seem; this is nectar (amrit). It will give thee power of prayer, love of worship, truth and contentment.’
Nanak drank the nectar and was overcome. He made another obeisance. The Almighty then blessed him:
I release thee from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth; he that sets his eyes on you with faith will be saved; he that hears your words with conviction will be helped by Me; he that you forgive will be forgiven by Me. I grant thee salvation. Nanak go back to the evil world and teach men and women to pray (nam), to give in charity (dan) and to live cleanly (isnan). Do good to the world and redeem it in the age of sin (Kalyuga).
(Mehervan’s Janamsakhi)
At dawn, three days later, on the full moon in August, Nanak re-emerged from the Bein. He was now a changed and determined man. While the people clamoured around him acclaiming him as a new messiah, he paid no heed. ‘What have I to do with men like these!’ he said to himself. He gave away all he had to the poor. He even cast off his clothes, keeping for himself only a loincloth. He left his home and joined a band of hermits.
Soon people began expressing themselves loudly: ‘Nanak was a sensible man,’ some said, but now he has lost his head.’ ‘He is stricken with the fear of the Lord,’ said others, ‘and is no longer himself.’ ‘Something in the river has bitten him,’ the rest were convinced, and took to calling him ‘mad, bewitched’.
‘It is the Lord who has possessed me and made me mad,’ explained Nanak. ‘If I find merit in the eyes of my Lord, then will I have justified my waywardness.’
‘Nanak, you are a different person today from what you were,’ the people exclaimed. ‘Tell us the path you intend to take. We only know of two ways: one of the Hindus and the other of the Mussalmans.’
‘There is no Hindu, there is no Mussalman’, replied Nanak.
‘You talk in cryptic language,’ they said. ‘In this world we understand the two ways: of Hinduism and of Islam.’
‘There are no Mussalmans, there are no Hindus,’ repeated Nanak. (Mehervan’s Janamsakhi.)
Nanak spent another two years in and around Sultanpur before he forsook the habitations of men and took to the forest and solitude. The faithful Mardana was his sole companion. He wore a strange dress: a long cloak worn by Muslim mendicants. He also wore a cloth cap (seli topee). He carried a beggar’s bowl, a staff and a prayer mat. When asked why he wore this outlandish garb, Nanak replied: ‘I am dressed like a clown for the amusement of my Master. If my apparel pleases Him, I will be happy.’
Nanak’s first journey took him eastwards to Hindu centres of pilgrimage. His biographies have fabricated many incidents based on Nanak’s hymns, many of which depict the Guru’s love for nature.
One day, says Mehervan’s Janamsakhi, Nanak and Mardana, while travelling, espied a flock of swans flying overhead. Nanak was bewitched and began to run after them with his eyes fixed on the birds. Mardana followed him. The flock descended in a field and let Nanak approach them without showing any sign of fear – for Nanak was a man of God, who harmed no one. Nanak admired the birds; their long slender necks, their luminous dark eyes and their silver-white plumage. He wondered whether these birds – which spanned the heavens – had ever cast their eyes on their Maker. Why, he asked himself, should such beautiful birds wander restlessly across the continents – from Khorasan in Central Asia to Hindustan and back again to Khorasan? He blessed the swans and bade them Godspeed on their journey.
Another hymn illustrates the political and social conditions of the time through picturing an incident that occurred in the suburbs of the capital city, Delhi. The city was at the time ruled by a bloodthirsty Pathan king (Ibrahim Lodhi). Nanak’s fame had preceded him and large crowds of citizens, sightseers and seekers after truth, Muslims as well as Hindus, came to see him. Near Nanak’s camp was a place where beggars and mendicants were fed free of charge by the wicked king. The people told Nanak of their king’s evil ways and how he expiated his sins by feeding beggars.
Nanak spoke to them:
Listen ye children of God! This charity of the king is of no consequence; it is the act of a blind man stumbling in the dark. He is worse than a blind man because even if his eyes lose their light, a blind man can hear and speak and comprehend, but one who has lost his mind has lost all. What avail is the giving of alms to one who sins by day and gives in charity at night? A stone dam can hold the flood but if the dam bursts you cannot repair the breach by plastering mud. Evil is like the flood, the stone dam like faith. If faith weakens, the dam will give way and the flood will sweep all before it. Its force is then so great that no boat or boatman dare embark on it to save its victims. Then nothing abides save the Name of the Lord.
(Mehervan’s Janamsakhi)
We do not know how long Nanak stayed in Delhi. He then proceeded to Hardiwar on the banks of the Ganga. It was apparently at a time of some religious festival when large crowds had turned up to bathe in the ‘holy’ river. Mardana was very impressed with the sight and said to Nanak: ‘What a lot of good people there are in the world! They must be genuinely desirous of improving themselves that is why they come on a pilgrimage.’
Nanak was not so impressed by the sight of the people ‘washing away their sins’ by the ritual of bathing. ‘Only a bullion dealer can tell the difference between the genuine and the counterfeit,’ he replied, ‘and at this place there is no bullion dealer.’
Nanak and Mardana stayed at Hardiwar for some time in order to be present at the Baisakhi (12/13 April) fair. It was on this occasion that an incident, which made Nanak famous, took place.
There was a large crowd bathing in the river. Nanak saw them face eastwards and throw palmfuls of water to the sun. Nanak entered the stream and started throwing water westwards.
‘In the name of Rama!’ exclaimed the shocked pilgrims, ‘who is this man who throws water to the west? He is either mad or a Mussalman.’ They approached Nanak and asked him why he offered water in the wrong direction. Nanak asked them why they threw it eastwards to the sun.
‘We offer it to our dead ancestors,’ they replied.
‘Where are your dead ancestors?’
‘With the gods in heaven.’
‘How far is the abode of the gods?’
‘Forty-nine crore kos [approximately two-and-a-half miles equal one kos] from here.’
‘Does the water get that far?’
‘Without doubt! But why do you throw it westwards?’
Nanak replied: ‘My home and lands are near Lahore. It has rained everywhere except on my land. I am therefore watering my fields.’
‘Man of God, how can you water your fields near Lahore from this place?’
‘If you can send it 49 crore kos to the abode of the gods, why can’t I send it to Lahore, which is only a couple of hundred kos away?’
The people were abashed at this reply. ‘He is not mad,’ they said, ‘he is surely a great seer.’ (Mehervan’s Janamsakhi.)
A large number of Hindu pilgrims who had foregathered at Hardwar became disciples of the Guru. He stayed on there after the Baisakhi festival preaching to the people:
The most precious gift of God is human birth because it is by reason and responsible action as human beings that we can get out of the vicious circle of life, death and rebirth and attain salvation. One must abolish duality in order to be a complete devotee.
‘And how does one overcome duality?’ they asked.
[Nanak replied:] ‘By faith in the One; by hearing and speaking of the One; by never abandoning belief in Him. By austerity, truth, restraint in his heart.’
(Mehervan’s Janamsakhi)
From Haridwar, Nanak and Mardana proceeded to Prayag (modern-day Allahabad) where the rivers Jamuna and the mythical Saraswati join the Ganga. From Prayag, the Guru went to Banaras (or Varanasi), the centre of Hindu learning and orthodoxy. The Adi Granth describes the many encounters Guru Nanak had with pandits who chided him for his unorthodoxy and probed his knowledge of the sacred texts. Nanak declared:
It matters not how many cart loads of learning you have nor what learned company you keep; it matters not how many boat loads of books you carry nor the tree of knowledge; it matters not how many years or months you spend in study nor with what passion and single-mindedness you pursue knowledge. Only one thing really matters, the rest is but a whirlwind of the ego.
‘And what is the one thing that matters?’ they asked.
Nanak replied: ‘There are a hundred falsehoods, but only one sovereign truth – that unless truth enters the soul all service and study [are] false.’
Nanak was equally forthright about the pandits’ fetish regarding the purity of their cooking vessels and kitchens. He decided to draw their attention to this in his usual manner of highlighting the incongruous aspects. He went with them and saw with what care they bathed, scrubbed their utensils, swept the ground near the hearth, washed the vegetables and cooked the food. When one plate was laid before Nanak, he refused to eat from it, saying: ‘I am not satisfied with the purity of the food you offer me. It is prepared by one who is full of sin and sins cannot be cleansed by washing the body.’
The pandits did not fully comprehend the import of Nanak’s words and prepared the meal afresh. This time they dug up the earth and replastered it; they even washed the logs of wood before kindling them. Again Nanak refused to partake of the meal and continued his sermon: ‘You err in believing that purity can be gained by scrubbing and washing. That does not apply even to inanimate things like wood, dung-fuel or water, much less to a human being. Man is unclean when his heart is tainted with greed, his tongue coated with falsehood, his eyes envious of the beauty of another’s wife or his wealth, his ears dirty with slander. All these can only be cleansed by knowledge. Basically all men are good but often they pursue a predetermined path to hell.’
Nanak was questioned on his attitude towards the sacred texts of the Hindus: ‘The Vedas say one thing and you another. People who read the Vedas do not follow their teachings and now you confuse them more than ever. Why don’t you either combine your teaching with that of the Vedas or separate them more distinctly?’
Nanak replied: ‘The Vedas tell you of the difference between good and evil. Sin is the seed of hell; chastity the seed of paradise. Knowledge and the teaching of the Vedas complement each other; they are to one another as merchandise to the merchant.’
It would appear that by this time Nanak had decided that his faith was to be an eclectic one for he sang hymns of Namdev, Kabir, Ravi Das, Sain and Beni. His new disciples tried to persuade Nanak to settle down in Banaras. Nanak refused to do so: ‘I pursue the one and only path of devotion to God,’ he replied. ‘Your learning and religion do not appeal to me and I have no interest in trade other than the name of God for God Himself has extinguished the desire for acquisition in me.’
Piecing together evidence from other sources, we find that the first journey apparently took the Guru as far east as West Bengal and Assam. On his way back to the Punjab, he spent some days at Jagannath Puri (in Orissa). He travelled round the Punjab and visited the Sufi headquarters at Pak Pattan (now in Pakistan) before he set out on his second long journey – this time southwards. He is said to have travelled through Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Konkan and Rajasthan, though there is little evidence to show that he did so.
Nanak sojourned in the Himalayas for some time before he set out on his last and longest journey. This was westwards as far as Baghdad and to the Muslims’ holy cities of Mecca and Medina. It was on this journey that another incident took place. He was staying in a mosque and fell asleep with his feet towards the Kaaba – an act considered to be of grave disrespect to the house of God. When the mullah came to say his prayers, he shook Nanak rudely and said: ‘O servant of God, thou hast thy feet towards Kaaba, the house of God; why hast thou done such a thing?’
Nanak replied: ‘Then turn my feet towards some direction where there is no God.’
By the time Nanak returned home around 1526, the Mughal Emperor Zahir-ud-din Babar had invaded the Punjab. The Guru was at Saidpur when the town was sacked by the invaders. Nanak makes many references to the havoc caused by this invasion.
Nanak was by this time too old to undertake any more strenuous journeys. He settled in the village Kartarpur where he spent the last years of his life preaching to the people. His disciples came to be known as Sikhs (from the Sanskrit shishya or Pali sikkha). He built a dharamshala (abode of faith) whose inmates followed a strict code of discipline: rising well before dawn, bathing and then foregathering in the dharamshala for prayer and hymn singing. They went about their daily chores and met again for the evening service. At the dharamshala was the Guru ka langar (the Guru’s kitchen) where all who came were obliged to break bread without distinction of caste or religion.
Among Nanak’s disciples was a man called Lehna whom Nanak chose in preference to his two sons as his successor. Said Nanak to Lehna: ‘Thou art Angad, a part of my body.’ He then asked another disciple to daub Angad’s forehead with saffron and proclaimed him the second Guru.
Nanak died in the early hours of 22 September 1539. He was a poet and lover of nature to the last. As he lay on his deathbed he recalled the scenes of his childhood. ‘The tamarisk must be in flower now; the pampas grass must be waving its woolly head in the breeze; the cicadas must be calling in the lonely glades,’ he said before he closed his eyes in eternal sleep.
Mehervan’s Janamsakhi records the manner in which his body was laid to rest. Said the Mussalmans: ‘We will bury him.’ Said the Hindus: ‘We will cremate him.’ Nanak said: ‘You place flowers on either side, Hindus on my right, Muslims on my left. Those whose flowers remain fresh tomorrow will have their way.’ He asked them to pray. When the prayer was over, Nanak pulled the sheet over him and went to eternal sleep. Next morning when they raised the sheet they found nothing. The flowers of both communities were fresh. The Hindus took theirs; the Muslims took those that they had placed.
It is little wonder that Nanak came to be revered as the king or shah of the holy men – the guru of the Hindus and the peer of the Mussalmans:
Baba Nanak Shah Fakeer
Hindu ka Guru, Mussalman ka Peer
Guru Gobind Singh
In the summer of 1922, a strange phenomenon was witnessed in the Punjab. That year the Sikhs launched a passive resistance movement to take possession of one of their historic shrines called Guru Ka Bagh, about 20 km from Amritsar. Batches of passive resisters went to this shrine. They were mercilessly beaten by the police. Their arms and legs were smashed; they were dragged by their long hair; and many were hung upside down from branches of trees till they became senseless.
Instead of being cowed down by these brutalities, the number of passive resisters increased steadily till 500-strong jathas (groups) began to arrive every day at Guru Ka Bagh – amongst them many who had suffered beatings earlier and had been discharged from the hospital after treatment.
This ‘rare species of courage’, as Mahatma Gandhi and Reverend C. F. Andrews (an Englishman who supported the struggle for freedom by India) described it, ‘was born of religious fervour’, which, in turn, was born of a legend widely accepted by the Sikhs. It was said that wherever five passive resisters (called satyagrahis) assembled to say their prayers, Guru Gobind Singh (the tenth and last Sikh Guru) appeared before them. It was believed that he led them to Guru Ka Bagh. And he, not the passive resister, received the blows showered by the police. When these satyagrahis were produced in court and asked their names and addresses, they gave their names correctly. But of their parentage and addresses, the answer invariably was: ‘My father’s name is Guru Gobind Singh; my mother’s Mata Sahib Devan. My home is the Guru’s own Anandpur Sahib [a holy place for the Sikhs].’
The Guru Ka Bagh satyagraha went on for some months till the Punjab gaols were crammed. Ultimately, it was the police and the government that gave in and agreed to Guru Ka Bagh being handed over to the Sikhs. I have met many of these passive resisters and, with my own ears, heard them tell of the darshan of the Guru, and his ethereal form leading them to face the police. They swear that they lost all fear and when they were tortured they felt no pain.
Soon after Guru Ka Bagh, yet another phenomenon was witnessed in the Punjab. The sacred pool surrounding the Hari Mandir Sahib (the Golden Temple) in Amritsar was drained and desilted. In this kar seva (doing service), as it was known, millions of people took part. One met hundreds of men and women who swore that many a time while they were engaged in this kar seva, Guru Gobind Singh’s white hawk swooped down from the skies and settled on the gold pinnacle of the Hari Mandir Sahib – and then as dramatically vanished into the blue heaven.
Sceptics will undoubtedly have explanations for these phenomena. Let us concede that in an atmosphere of religious fervour, such experiences are possible. However, the point to bear in mind is that for the Sikhs these phenomena have been usually connected with Guru Gobind Singh, because he has been to them their father-figure, their supreme hero, the sustainer of faith, hope and courage, and their beau idéal – all in one.
What kind of man was Guru Gobind Singh (1666–1708)? Most readers, I think, must be familiar with the main events of his life. I will not repeat them. I will only draw attention to five points to help one judge the Guru’s place in history. The choice of the number ‘five’ is deliberate. Five has some kind of mystic significance in the Punjab – the land of five rivers. The Guru himself subscribed to the sanctity of five:
Pancon men nit bartat main hun
panc milan to piran pir.
(Wherever there are five there am I.
Where five meet, they are the holiest of the holy.)
First, it should be borne in mind that he was only a child of nine when his father, the ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur, was executed (beheaded) by the order of the sixth Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. In any mortal, such an experience would result in a traumatic shock followed, first, by fear and, then, by hate and a desire for revenge against the people who had perpetrated the crime. I have little doubt that many persons must have tried to fill young Gobind’s mind with feelings of hatred and revenge against the Mughals. The Guru, however, remained impervious to these influences. When he grew into manhood, he announced his mission in life in the following words:
I came into the world charged with the duty to uphold the right in every place, to destroy sin and evil ... the only reason I took birth was to see that righteousness may flourish, that good may live, and tyrants be torn out by their roots.
Secondly, we should constantly bear in mind that the Guru never subscribed to the theory of ‘might is right’. Although he introduced the worship of arms in Sikh religious rituals and even described the sword, the spear and the musket as ‘the peers’, religious mentors of the Sikhs, this was entirely in the context of using force as the ‘righter of wrongs’. He was fully aware of the fact that the teachings of the first five Gurus and the Granth Sahib were pacific in content. But should truth and goodness be allowed to suffer annihilation at the hands of falsehood and evil? Guru Gobind Singh’s answer was a categorical ‘no’. In a Persian composition entitled the Zafarnama, the epistle of victory, said to have been sent to Emperor Aurangzeb, he wrote:
Chu kar uz hama har heel te dar guzusht
Halal ust burdan ba shamsheer dust.
(When all other means have failed,
it is righteous to draw the sword.)
In this context, it is significant that although Guru Gobind Singh dictated the final version of the Guru Granth Sahib, he did not include any of his own compositions exhorting people to rise in arms in the sacred text.
Thirdly, the Guru took special care that anti-Muslim sentiment should not stain the crusade he was about to launch against the Mughals. ‘My sword strikes tyrants, not men’, he said. Amongst the earliest recruits to his army were Muslims. Although he fought the Mughals all his life – as indeed he did the Hindu Rajputs of the hills – he had both Muslims and Hindus fighting on his side, shoulder to shoulder with his Sikhs. This followed naturally from his conviction that all men were of one caste: ‘Manas ki jat sab ek pacanbo,’ he exhorted. He believed that the mosque and the temple were the same; the call of the muezzin and the chanting of the pandit were the same.
The non-communal tradition started by Guru Gobind Singh was continued into the time of Maharajah Ranjit Singh (1780–1839) who was, as pointed out by Jawaharlal Nehru in his Discovery of India, one of the few genuinely secular rulers of our country. It was, therefore, in the fitness of things that in the crowning success of Sikh arms, the flag that the Muslim warrior, Colonel Sheikh Bassawan, triumphantly carried through the streets of Kabul in 1839 bore the emblem of Guru Gobind Singh. Likewise, the Dogra general, Zorawar Singh, planted this saffron banner bearing Guru Gobind Singh’s chakra, with kirpans crossed beneath, in the heart of Tibet.
Guru Gobind Singh was able to raise his fight against the Mughals into a struggle of the downtrodden against the oppression of the rich and into a demand for justice against the tyranny of wrongdoers: in short, into a crusade, a veritable dharma yudha (a war to protect righteousness) against the powers of evil. He forbade his soldiers from looting. He made them take solemn vows that they would never molest the women of the enemy. He emulated the example of our ancient rishis and yogis and insisted that all Sikhs should wear their hair and beards unshorn – for they were not common soldiers but Sant Sipahis, soldier-saints.
Fourthly, what deserves attention is the incredible sense of loyalty and sacrifice that the Guru was able to arouse amongst his followers. Let me give you a few examples. You may have heard of the famous baptismal ceremony when five men willingly agreed to have their heads cut off. There are innumerable examples of similar sacrifice. As well known as these first five Sikhs, known as the ‘Panj Piyaras’, were, there was another group of known as ‘chali mukte’ (40 liberated ones). Under great stress during the prolonged siege of Anandpur beginning in May 1705, these 40 individuals asked the Guru to let them go. After getting a deed of renunciation, the Guru released them from their obligation. When they returned to their homes, their women folk taunted them for disloyalty to the master. The 40 (including amongst them a woman, Mai Bhago) rejoined the Guru at Muktsar and fell fighting in December 1705. The last request their leader, Mahan Singh, made to the Guru, was to have the deed of renunciation torn up before he closed his eyes for ever.
Yet another example is that of an old woman who came to the Guru for help. She told him that her husband and two sons had been killed fighting. All that remained of her family was her youngest son who was dangerously ill. She begged the Guru’s blessings to restore him to health – not to have someone to look after her in old age, but in order that this son too could attain martyrdom in the battlefield.
How was Guru Gobind Singh able to instil in his followers this kind of inspired valour? He could do so primarily by setting an example himself. He fought alongside his men. He never put his family before his followers. On the contrary, at one of the engagements, he allowed two of his sons to go to a certain death before he allowed any of his ‘Panj Piyaras’ to do so. Within a few months he lost all his four sons: two were killed fighting; the other two, aged nine and seven, were executed by Wazir Khan, the governor of Sirhind (in Punjab), in December 1705. The Guru’s own mother died of grief. When his wife asked him, in tears, for her four sons, the Guru answered: ‘What if four be dead; thousands live to continue the battle.’ It was by this kind of personal example that the Guru was able to train poor rustics, who had handled nothing more lethal than a lathi, and flabby, pot-bellied, timid shopkeepers, to become some of the greatest fighters India has ever known. He redeemed his pledges that ‘he would train the sparrow to fight the hawk’ and ‘teach one man to fight a legion’.
Pathans, Persians, Afghans and Baluchis of the North West Frontier region, who had for centuries invaded India, and terrified, massacred and looted our people, were beaten back into their homelands by these new soldiers of Guru Gobind Singh. It has never been fully appreciated by our historians that these Sikhs set up a human barricade against the invaders and so made possible the rise of Maratha power in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when they (the Marathas) ruled over vast territories in the Indian subcontinent.
Fifthly, and the final point, is the genuinely democratic spirit of this great leader of men. Guru Gobind Singh never claimed divinity for himself. He denounced those who tried to make him an incarnation of God: ‘I was ordained to establish a sect and lay down its rules,’ he wrote. ‘But whosoever regards me as Lord shall be damned and destroyed. I am, and [about] this let there be no doubt, I am but a slave to God, as other men are: a beholder of the wonders of creation.’
He took no credit for what he did. He attributed all achievements to the Khalsa (the pure) – all his victories, his power, his prestige, he said, were due to the efforts of his followers. Although he was their Guru, he made himself their disciple: aape gur-chela. Whenever the congregation passed a resolution, it acquired the sanctity of a gurumata – an ordinance of the Guru binding even on the Guru himself.
Guru Gobind Singh was thus a rare combination of many qualities: a sophisticated aesthete composing poetry in many languages such as Sanskrit, Prakrit, Persian and Punjabi; a handsome cavalier fond of courting danger; a soldier who dedicated his life to fighting tyranny; a leader who looked upon his followers as comrades and equals; a Guru who exhorted people to worship the God they loved best but insisted they look upon their fellow beings as equals; and a man who sacrificed all he had – his family and his worldly possessions and ultimately himself for his ideals. This ideal he stated in lines that have become the most quoted of his compositions:
O Lord of Thee these boons I ask:
Let me never shun a righteous task.
Let me be fearless when I go to battle.
Give me faith that victory will be mine.
Give me power to sing Thy praise,
And when comes the time to end my life,
Let me fall in mighty strife.
Has the world produced many men as great as Guru Gobind Singh?